Former University of Alabama football player and veteran TV newsman Christopher Sign is joining Birmingham station ABC 33/40 as the evening news co-anchor beginning Oct. 23, the station has announced.

Sign is currently a reporter and morning anchor at ABC affiliate KNXV-TV in Phoenix. He joins ABC 33/40 following the retirement earlier this month of veteran anchor Dave Baird.

While in Phoenix, Sign broke the huge story of the June 2016 secret tarmac meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch. He also won a 2014 Emmy Award for breaking news for his coverage of the shooting of two Phoenix police officers, as well as an Edward R. Murrow Award for spot news and an Emmy Award for breaking news for his coverage of the search for the "Baseline Killer" and "Serial Shooter" who terrorized Phoenix in the summer of 2016.

Sign, who grew up near Dallas, previously worked as a reporter for ABC 33/40 from 2000 to 2005, where he covered the 2001 Brookwood mine disaster and hurricanes Charlie, Frances and Ivan.

Sign attended the University of Alabama in the 1990s and spent four years as an offensive lineman for the Crimson Tide under former coach Gene Stallings. While at Alabama, he met his wife, Laura, an All-SEC volleyball player. The couple has three sons.